Netanyahu’s Stunt and Public Opinion

In the last post I said I doubted that most Americans would side with Netanyahu. YouGov has released the results of a new poll that suggest I was on the right track:

43% answering that it is inappropriate is a bit lower than I would have expected, but it still shows that there is significant public opposition to this sort of behavior from Congress. There is certainly no majority in favor of it. Barely a third of Americans approves of bringing in a foreign leader to undermine U.S. policy. Since the respondents are aware of the controversy over Netanyahu’s speech, the partisan divide isn’t too surprising. Most Republican respondents are siding with their party leaders in this case, but 30% still consider Boehner’s invitation to be inappropriate. If Boehner thought that he was making a clever political maneuver by bringing in Netanyahu, it seems clear that he badly miscalculated.

about the author

Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC, where he also keeps a solo blog. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

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